Waterfront towers are bird killers
As the Year of the Rabbit begins, Yin Yang Hamilton has entered a new phase, one bound to disturb all those who value the return of the harbour as a public natural gem in the hands of this rough-and-tumble city.
The extraordinary geography of Hamilton has always inspired hyperbole: the Ambitious City, the Hammer, and the City of 100 Waterfalls to name some of the most memorable. As the industrial footprint of the city grew, so too the exploitation of its abundant natural resources. La Salle Park in Burlington was the destination for Hamilton’s weekend swimming, boating and fishing outings while the streetcar carried passengers to the beach. Until they didn’t and water pollution earned Randle Reef the unfortunate designation as the largest contaminated sediment site on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes.
Windemere Park is the remarkable result of a trigovernmental/McMaster University collaboration cleanup, an extraordinary testimony to the resilience of nature given half a chance and a little helping hand. So too is the remarkable series of trails best represented on the waterfront by the Millennial Trail.
What is less well understood is that the Niagara River system and the Golden Horseshoe straddle one of four massive flyways for North and South American migrating birds, and that Coote’s Paradise represents one of the largest and last open wetland basins on Lake Ontario.
We share the stewardship of one-fifth of the world’s fresh water supply with our feathered friends.
On April 1, 2022, Nature Canada designated Hamilton the sixth Bird Friendly City of Canada. No, it was not an April Fools’ joke, but a recognition of the extraordinary decades-long restoration of Burlington Bay and Cootes Paradise and a reminder of the perilous situation our feathered friends are facing as they fly north and south.
They are the true “canaries” in the coal mine of this climate-change defying moment, though I might choose a hummingbird as the “canary.”
The non-profit Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP), estimates Canada loses 25,000,000 birds a year to building collisions, especially those made of glass. Birds, it seems, especially some of the little, colourful guys we love so much, do most of their migrating at night.
FLAP teams both rescue and document this extraordinary killing ground in Toronto. Their publications include “A Field Guide to the Common Birds of Toronto” (2009) where the annual estimated loss of the hummingbird that year was 26,800. Habitat loss and predators such as our free-roaming cats are equally responsible for the steep decline in numbers. Recent studies suggest that one in four of our backyard birds in North America (some 3 billion) have been lost since 1970.
Hamilton is a caring place. Some birds have managed to thrive thanks to the careful husbandry of habitat. The Hamilton Naturalists’ Club is perhaps the most venerable as it has been around since 1919, but there are many other groups working on our behalf in backyard and global counts of birds.
The latest proposal concerning our fragile Burlington Bay/Coote’s Paradise system, however, is looking upwards, not to count birds, but to pierce the heavens with a 45-storey apartment tower on Pier 8. The footprint appears to occupy the current parking area near Williams Fresh Cafe. Not just one, but a second tower of 30 storeys would soon follow, championed as bringing a signature/landmark to the harbour.
What an extraordinary betrayal of a process of waterfront development that had been measured and consultative.
Already underway is a project for nine condos of eight storeys each, with a boardwalk well underway, much more in keeping with the vision originally vetted by city council and its preliminary consultations with Hamilton’s citizens. Our yin yang see-saws between the feathered and the phallic while we bicker over locations for tiny houses and watch developers tear up the last of the Greenbelt.
Every new housing project — and we have plenty of room — needs to demonstrate mindfulness about the harbour heritage. Remember it’s for the birds!
VIRGINIA AKSAN LIVES IN HAMILTON.